Tresdin's last quest
by quantumowl
Summary: The Legion Commander, years after the end of her war, receives a new quest that will test not only her skill on the battlefield, but also something else...
1. Chapter 1

**Prologue**

"Your legion is no more, Tresdin. Do you still wage war?"

The armored woman didn't need to think her answer for even a second: "As long as I am its commander, the Legion fights. Now, what do you want from me?"

The old drow fissured his eyes, gazing into the bonfire as he kept talking. Glimpses of flames lightened his dark, consumed skin.

"Mpf" his shoulders shuddered as he bursted into a small laugh "Do you really need to ask? You know, your banners are soaked with blood, both from enemies and friends. And the stain of the latter is much more strong."

The Commander punched the soil hard, lifting a small dusty cloud that made the blazes flinch. "If you're here to mock me, you'd better start running, or your blood will dye my banners too."

"Oh, my. Watch your temper, girl...oops, sorry. _Commander_." There was no fright in his voice, not even a bit. He knew she would've never attacked him, and she knew that as well.

"SPEAK OUT!"

She stood, her fists clenched. "State your business. NOW."

The drow didn't mind her heavy breathing nor her furious look, he maintained his voice calm and low: "Ok, ok. I'll be more clear, Tresdin. Despite your claims, you are alone now, all of your legion mates are either dead or disappeared, which is basically the same."

He pulled back the hood covering his forehead, letting his long, white hair shine against the fire. "War is still raging inside you, and this is painful, am I wrong?"

She snorted, her fists now relaxed again. Her voice was strong and clear as usual, but something was different. There were traces of sadness in her answer. Glimpses of awareness that he wasn't wrong.

"War is endless, it changes aspect and people fighting for it, but never sleeps. It never sleeps on the battlefields, and inside my head as well. But if it's a job offer what you're trying to get me into, you're wasting your time. I'm not a mercenary."

"I'm not looking for a mercenary, Tresdin. I'm looking for a commander."

"Then look elsewhere, there are plenty of creatures eager to bathe in blood and guts, to have the slightest excuse to unleash their powers against any kind of enemy. Talk to them, and leave me alone."

The drow stoop up, matching her gaze with his little, dark eyes.

"I have no interest in them. I want you. I want someone able to do the most difficult thing to achieve on a battlefield."

"You mean to survive?"

"Hahaha, you got me. Ok, the second most difficult thing: to turn odds."

Her mouth went still, her lips still opened in an answer that didn't come out.

"..."

"I will have you informed about time and place. You'll be ready, your armor shiny and your blade sharp. You will fight again."

Without a single word, he turned his back and walked away toward the same path that led him there. Tresdin sat down again, silent.

"I won't go." Her whisper to the flames was feeble and ominous. She knew she was lying.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 1**

Everything Tresdin needed was in the bag a flying donkey brought her some days before, and now she was marching through a thick and dark forest, following the map she found inside the bag, along with three green bottles full of liquid and a leather pouch with some silvery powder inside.

As a soldier, she was used to long marches, it was better to hurry up and put an end to this kind of quest as soon as possible, so her pace was pretty fast and her halberd proved itself useful for chopping down branches and logs blocking the passage.

The first signal that something was wrong came when Tresdin realized she couldn't hear any kind of sound: no animals moving inside bushes nor birds flying from tree to tree; this didn't make her stop, on the opposite, the hopes for a fight that could've broken the monotony of her journey grew higher.

Everything changed when the smell of wet wood mixed with scents of flowers and musk left its place to an intense, penetrating stream of brown smoke that assaulted her nostrils, making her cough.

"W-what?"

She stopped, a hand covering her nose while the disgusting scent grew stronger, saturating the air around her and making her cough again. The already low visibility, due to the lack of light able to penetrate the canopy, diminished further along with her senses going dizzy, clouded by that smell that was surrounding her.

When the trunk of a tree next to her suddenly cracked loudly, Tresdin jumped back, the halberd raised and ready to fight despite the pain in her lungs. She couldn't see who or what made that, but a sound came to her ears, a sound she never thought she could've been hearing again: a metal chain winding back.

"_Cough..._Who's there? Show yourself, if you have the guts!"

A second later she felt a sharp pain in her left side as a giant hook, linked to the chain she heard before, pierced her armor and quickly pulled her towards a bushy spot between two trees.

"Oi, don't talk about me guts, mate. Let's instead take a look at _yours"_

That voice, how many times she have heard it on the battlefield.

"How is that..."

The figure that was holding the chain was now in front of her, an enormous silhouette made of rotting flesh from which that nasty smoke was oozing out, and with his right hand stopped her motion, grabbing her neck right under the edge of her helm.

Her side was burning, but that pain was not even near the terror that was raising inside her chest.

"P-Pudge? What are you...ARGH"

He took the hook out of her side and punched her in the middle of her breastplate, cutting her breath even shorter than it already was.

"Shut up, Tresdin, and let me do my job. In a matter of minutes you'll look much better, with an apple in your mouth"

There was something wrong with him, though. He was exactly how she remembered him, except for his eyes: they were completely white, lifeless and staring at her while his tongue licked his lips and slurped several times.

The pain grew stronger, added itself to the dizziness caused by the fumes that kept pouring out Pudge's body, but she had to do something, and fast.

"Yaaah!" The Commander lifted her right leg and kicked the Butcher in the middle of his gigantic belly, forcing him to loosen his grip on her neck: a quick twist of her body, trying not to mind the pain and the confusion in her head, managed to set her free.

She fell on the ground, and immediately rolled aside to avoid the meat hook that slammed the terrain in the position she was until a second before: her priority was to get back to where her weapon dropped when she got hooked, so she backtracked trying to use the trees as a shield, should another hook come. Her throat was dry and utterly irritated by the smoke, but despite that she could see her halberd on the grass, and dived to it, grabbing the hilt with both hands. Then she stepped up, knowing well that the more she remained inside that toxic cloud, the worse it would become, so she had to end that quickly.

If there's something a soldier need to learn on the battlefield, it's to notice and remember the weak spots in the enemy, and Pudge (or whatever that thing was) made no exception: if Tresdin recalled correctly, the more he used that rotting smell, the more he became weaker himself.

"Come on, don't be shy, pretty soldier! Come here, dinner is served, come to Pudge!"

The meathook flew toward her again, but this time Tresdin was quicker: she lifted her blade up and slammed in on the chain with all the strength left in her arms, cutting it near the edge with sparks and a metallic screech.

"Oi! Me hook, how you dare!"

She focused: gathered all her will inside her chest, letting it explode on the outside as a bright aura shone on her body for a second.

"NOW'S THE TIME!"

She felt better, the pain less intense and her arms and legs more reactive than before. A series of jumps put her closer to the Butcher again, but this time her halberd was ready: before he could react, she sliced through his belly with a full-force swing, followed by a very fast thrust with the tip of her blade in the middle of his stomach. "_Ugh_" his blank eyes met her gaze for a fraction of second, then he collapsed on the ground, disappearing after a second in a bluish-like color, the smoke gone with him.

Tresdin took a deep breath of fresh air, then rustled inside her bag and pulled put one of the green bottles: she drank the entire fluid with a couple of sips, and immediately felt better, her wound on the side less painful and almost healed.

"It was really him?" she murmured, sitting on the ground, her back leaned against a tree.

What did that drow send her to accomplish? A battle against her old enemies? And why? She had no clue, despite the fact that Pudge was different from what she remembered, but he wasn't an ordinary illusion either. And was he really waiting for...her?


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 2**

Two things were waiting for Tresdin outside the forest, two days after her encounter with Pudge: a warm, shiny sun and a figure standing on the top of a big boulder, next to the path she was meant to follow. The healing salve did its job, so her wounded side was barely itching from time to time and the woman could focus on the man standing in front of her, like he was expecting her arrival.

A white-haired humanoid body with blue skin and feline features on his face, he was standing still, holding a spear in his right hand and wearing a bronze armor on his shoulder and torso.

He welcomed Tresdin with a bow of his head, his hair and beard gently scrambled by the gusts of wind.

"Azwraith? What are you doing here, did they sent you too for a kind of q..."

His eyes, they were completely white, she had just noticed. Like Pudge, the same gaze.

"Oh, no, not you" she muttered, raising her halberd ready to strike in case of attack.

"_Prepare for battle, Commander, for we are a legion, and you are alone. You still wear the Bronze Banners, we see, yet no other soldier is with you in this quest. We will crush you with our number"._

The Phantom Lancer disappeared, and after a second he appeared again, multiplied by four. The spearman and his illusions leaped forward, rushing toward her without hesitation: she was forced to jump back and swing her halberd in a wide arc, in an attempt to intercept their blows. One of the spears made its way past her guard and hit her breastplate without breaking it, the pain way less intense than a normal lance blow would give. That was the hit of an illusion, she knew well how Azwraith fought, so she was aware that his illusions were only carrying a fraction of their master's strength.

"Ngh"

Tresdin stoke back, piercing the illusion with a quick thrust: it dissolved in white sparks without a sound.

"_You cannot resist us"_

The three remaining lancers attacked again, two additional illusions suddenly created from the ones already existing. He was able to multiply himself indefinitely, becoming a true army able to take down an entire squad of soldier in a matter of minutes. This time the real lancer managed to strike her on her leg, a spurt of red blood stained the grass around her feet as a sharp, real pain rose through her body. She had to retreat, and quickly.

Ignoring the pain, Tresdin ran back inside the forest, pursued by her enemies. They were fast, able to rush toward at increased speed her every time she gained some distance. They kept multiplying until there were more than a dozen lancers at her back, so the only thing she could do was to dash from tree to tree, using them as a natural shield against their charges.

From time to time she turned back and blew a sudden blow against one of them, causing an illusion to disappear, only to see it replaced by other two in a matter of seconds. Only twice she hit the real Lancer, she could tell because he didn't disappear and her blow felt like it hit real flesh and not an image made of smoke-like substance.

Despite that, the Phantom Lancer didn't show any will to stop his chasing, so it soon became clear to Tresdin that she couldn't keep running forever, even if the narrow path in the forest kept all those illusion from reaching and surrounding her.

She started breathing heavily: while she was trained for war, no soldier had ever been meant to fight an army alone.

Once she reached a clearing, she suddenly stopped, and turned to face the army of illusions behind her; they stopped too, spreading all around her until they had completely surrounded her, blocking any path she could use to escape.

"You're not the real Azwraith, are you?" she asked, trying to calm down her pounding heart. Twelve pairs of blank eyes looked in her direction, and then they answered in unison, as a whole mind: "W_e are the Phantom Lancer, we are here to fight you."_

"You're not! I knew the real Lancer, he was different, you are just a fraud, a poorly done fake. Who sent you, and why?"

"_Enough."_

Without saying anything else, all the lancers jumped forward, their spears ready to strike at her from every direction.

_What did the old drow said? "If there's something you're good at, that is overwhelming odds"_

Maybe that was what he meant with those words, and there was only a way to test it.

She waited for their strike, she let them hit her armor without defending herself: eleven illusion blows hit her simultaneously, causing sharp bursts of pain all along her body, but they were nothing to the strike from the real lancer, which broke her right shoulder guard and pierced her collarbone from side to side.

She bled, the sudden pain almost made her scream, but it wasn't the time for that: she had left them do their attacks because it was the only way to have them all gathered in a small area around her, an opportunity she couldn't waste.

Tresdin raised her halberd high over her head, and used it to call down her revenge against her enemies.

"OVERWHELMING ODDS"

A downpour of golden sparks fell down from the tip of her blade, raining all over the Lancer and his illusions around her. They shrieked as every illusion, one after one, disappeared after that rain, and only the real Azwraith remained, right in front of her, his white eyes widened in surprise.

He tried to retaliate, but this time Tresdin was quicker, and forced him to parry her fast blow, so he hadn't time to multiply and create new copies of himself. Two, three swings in a couple of seconds, and then the fourth made his way through his guard and pierced his armor in the middle of the chest.

"_We...failed"_

He fell on his knees and slowly dissolved in a blue cloud, brighter and more dense than the normal illusions' dissolution smoke.

"Another down"

The Commander could finally catch her breath before resuming her journey, she drank another salve to quickly recover some strength and looked inside her bag: one last remaining, along with the dust. Did that mean another enemy was waiting for her? Because at that point it was clear that those kind of ghosts was waiting for her, and someone had set all that up. The question was: by whom? She had a clear idea about that.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 3**

Two enemies down, one still to go. Or at least that was what Tresdin was expecting, given the remaining healing salve and the dust in her bag, and she hadn't to wait much longer to see if she was right.

Out of the forest, then down a valley, until she reached an abandoned keep: a large, square building made of stone, that stood on the peak of a high hill and loomed over a little river that flowed beside it.

The map was clear, that was her final destination; more specifically, a sentence hand-written on the paper said to go inside the treasure room and retrieve whatever was contained inside.

The heavy wooden doors opened with a creak, revealing a dusty hall: it was empty, except for some piles of rubble and debris here and there.

Everything was silent, so Tresdin advanced further inside the room, eyes opened wide and her entire body ready to react to anything suspicious. Many doorways led to smaller rooms, probably quarters for the soldiers who used to life there. Nothing interesting, only more dust , so she moved upstairs along a wooden staircase, since the treasure room was supposed to be on the first floor.

There she found other empty rooms along with the only one which still had a door, locked with a rusty chain and a padlock. One single swing with her halberd was enough to cut the chain and pry the door open with a creaking sound: in front of her there was a barely-lit room, its windows covered by wooden axes that let through only dim rays of light. On the opposite wall, hanging from the ceiling, there was a huge banner made of red and golden cloth: the Stonehall emblem.

"..."

The Commander stood there, frozen in place, looking at it. If that was a joke, it wasn't a funny one. Under the drape, there was a little trunk.

"Oh, I'm so gonna kick your balls out" she muttered angrily while advancing toward it, when a voice coming from nowhere made her stop.

"_Don't you like my little welcoming gift, Tresdin?"_

She spun around, but no one was to be seen in the room. Yet the voice continued.

"_I thought it could've helped you feel more...at home, you know."_

As the calm, soothing voice continued, she could hear light footsteps around her, like an invisible being was walking in the room while speaking. All her muscles were tense, the grip on her halberd hilt almost painful.

"_Anyway, Legion Commander, I'd really like to talk some more with you, but they got a bargain when they hired me, so I'm going to fulfill my contract right now. It'll be over quick, don't worry."_

As soon as those words ended, a poof accompanied the appearance of a cloud of dense, purple smoke in the middle of the room.

"ARGH"

A sharp pain stroke at her back, a single blow with a dagger that hit right where her back-armor ended. She turned rapidly, and even if the smoke made seeing anything extremely difficult, she could recognize a pair of curved horns, a tail and a satyr-like body shape that quickly disappeared, vanishing like it never existed.

"Rikimaru! Come here and fight me, coward"

"_I am no honorable soldier, Tresdin. I am an assassin who melts with the shadow" _was the reply just before another blink brought him again at her back, and another strike with his dagger cut a new wound open on the woman's flesh.

Aching in pain, Tresdin turned as quickly as she could, and for the first time she managed to see her opponent's entire figure. For a moment, they stared at each other, the painful but fiery eyes of the woman met the pale, completely white gaze of the satyr; then, he disappeared again.

She knew what to do: took out from her bag the envelope with the dust, and threw half of it in the air, where Riki was standing before. He was still there, his body made visible again as soon as the dust attached on him, and laughed loud.

"_So you're prepared, then. What a pity your cheap tactics won't help you"_

With his free hand he wielded another dagger from inside his black jacket, a short and shiny blade that looked almost ethereal, impalpable. With a grin, he stabbed himself in the chest, disappearing a second after with a light glow.

"You scum..." he had used a Diffusal Blade to purge himself from the dust, and now she only had one dose left of revealing powder.

She needed time, so she rushed outside the room and down the staircase, hiding inside one of the smaller rooms on the ground floor.. Breathing heavily, she leaned against the wall next to the door, and tried to listen carefully, to detect the faintest sound that could reveal the presence of Rikimaru. It was only a matter of time, Tresdin knew it: her only chance was to act without mistakes, and quickly.

At first there was only silence beside her rugged breath, then, light footsteps approached.

"_Treeeesdin, were are you? Wanna play some hide-and-seek? Oh, I'm so good at this game"_

He didn't say anything else, and everything went quiet once again. Then, suddenly, another smoke bomb filled the room with those noxious fumes, so the soldier jumped outside, in the main hall, having care to keep her back exposed. A blink, and Riki was again at her back, ready to strike, but this time she had all the visibility she needed. She knew her opponent couldn't have another bomb ready before some minutes, so it was the time: she turned and threw in the air the remaining dust. Here he was, right in front of her, both his dagger and the diffusal blade ready, but this time she was quicker. Before the satyr could purge himself again, she focused her mind on him. Her eyes burned like embers, her voice gave a command he simply couldn't ignore, no matter how he tried.

"Duel me!"

He was forced to fight face-to-face, without being able to turn or leave a ring of yellow light that had appeared around them, on the floor.

He was good with the dagger, but on a fair duel his skills were nothing against a veteran soldier and her blade.

"I"  
She stroke at his left hand, disarming the most dangerous weapon, the diffusal blade.

"WILL"

With a horizontal swing, she pushed his right arm aside, thus creating an opening in his guard.

"TEAR"

She hit the assassin in the face with the hilt of her halberd, to prevent any kind of retaliation.

"YOU"

Another swing made the dagger fly away on the ground, outside his reach.

""APART!"

The final thrust pierced Riki in the chest, one, two, three times before she stopped and looked at his body, disappearing like the others. "_Exposed...to the elements"_ was his final cry, then silence fell once again on the building.

Tresdin drank the last salve, then returned upstairs, picking up the locked chest under the Stonehall banner in the treasure room.

She was ready to return home, as her quest had been completed. But how many question still she had...


End file.
